The bonds of friendship

The first thing the reader learns in Virginia DeBerry and Donna Grant's engaging new novel, Better Than I Know Myself, is that one of a trio of friends is dead. We don't know which one it is. It's a clever hook to get us to read on, but we quickly become absorbed in the lives of these three complex and talented young women who meet at Barnard College in 1981. They couldn't be more different:...

Audio Column by Arlene McKanic

Virginia DeBerry and Donna Grant's latest novel, Far From the Tree, is about three difficult women in the Frazier family: the proud Della and her daughters, Celeste and Ronnie, who find themselves, to their dismay, breathing the same air in the same house when they gather for the funeral of the family patriarch. The title of the book is appropriate, since both sisters are as stubborn and...

Virginia DeBerry and Donna Grant's latest novel, Far From the Tree, is about three difficult women in the Frazier family: the proud Della and her daughters, Celeste and Ronnie, who find themselves, to their dismay, breathing the same air in the same house when they gather for the funeral of the family patriarch. The title of the book is appropriate, since both sisters are as stubborn and...